Legion of Angels News Archive

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Tony Dungy doesn’t doubt Bob Sanders will be back in the Colts lineup this season. He’s just not sure how long Sanders will be out.

The 2007 defensive player of the year could miss up to six weeks after spraining his right ankle last weekend at Minnesota, and team officials are contemplating whether Sanders may need arthroscopic surgery on his knee, too.

“It’s kind of similar to (receiver) Roy Hall’s injury,” Dungy said. “He had his knee scoped, too, so he’s going to be out a while longer. If it’s going to be two or three weeks, then it makes sense to get it scoped. But (defensive tackle) Keyunta Dawson had the same kind of thing and he told me he was going to practice today, so we’re not really sure.”

Team president Bill Polian was more definitive Tuesday night while taping a segment for his Saturday night television show on WISH-TV. Polian said Sanders would miss four to six weeks.

Dungy has been wary of establishing ironclad timetables since he told reporters that tight end Dallas Clark was expected to go on injured reserve after tearing his ACL during the 2006 season. Two days later, the prognosis changed and while Clark missed four games, he played in the season finale and had a prominent role in the Colts’ Super Bowl run.

The latest injury continues a strange even-numbered-year hex for Sanders, who played in just six games during his rookie season in 2004 and four games in 2006. In odd-numbered years, Sanders has started 14 and 15 games, respectively.

Dungy wasn’t even sure how Sanders was hurt at Minnesota. He left during the fourth quarter and hasn’t been available to reporters since then.

“I’m still learning the extent of it myself,” Dungy said. “I guess, whether it was the ‘dreaded high ankle sprain,’ I guess I found that out Monday night.”

Losing one of the NFL’s hardest hitters will certainly impact the Colts’ struggling run defense.

Indy has already allowed Chicago rookie Matt Forte and Minnesota Pro Bowler Adrian Peterson to each rush for more than 100 yards, and the Colts rank 28th in the league against the run.

The likely replacement is second-year safety Melvin Bullitt, who made the team last year as an undrafted free agent. Bullitt finished with two tackles Sunday, but has often practiced with the starters.

“I feel like I’m prepared,” Bullitt said. “It’s always hard to replace a player like Bob, who was the defensive player of the year and, in my opinion, is the best safety in the league.”

Sanders’ injury is the latest setback for a team that has been ravaged by injuries all season.

Former league sacks champion Dwight Freeney missed all of training camp after sustaining a season-ending foot injury, which required surgery last November. Sanders, too, sat out training camp after having offseason shoulder surgery for the second straight year.

Then in July, two more starters were hurt. Two-time league MVP Peyton Manning had surgery to remove an infected bursa sac from his left knee, which kept him sidelined six weeks. Linebacker Tyjuan Hagler tore a pectoral muscle while lifting weights. Hagler is still on the physically unable to perform list.

It hasn’t gotten any better.

Since August, the Colts lost Pro Bowl center Jeff Saturday, Clark and projected starting right guard Mike Pollak with knee injuries. Saturday and Pollak haven’t played since Aug. 24, while Clark missed the second half of the season opener and was held out of the Minnesota game.

Heck, even offensive line coach Howard Mudd is out after having knee surgery.

On Sunday, things got even worse. Besides Sanders, the Colts also lost left tackle Tony Ugoh with a groin injury.

While Ugoh isn’t expected to play against Jacksonville, Saturday is and Clark could if he can stay healthy in practice this week.

“It’s great, great. How are you feeling?” Clark joked Wednesday. “Today is a big day. I’m going to go out there and get hit around and see how it feels. It feels good, it feels stable, so today will tell a lot. Hopefully, I’ll make it through without getting any more sore.”

And the Colts believe they can get by temporarily without Sanders, their defensive leader, because they have a bye next week.

“With a guy like Bob, of course, there’s going to be some dropoff,” Freeney said. “Maybe you won’t see someone make that spectacular play, but you’ve still got to make plays. When one guy goes down, another guy has to step up, and there have to be 11 guys swarming to the ball.”

Source — FOX Sports

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. (CNNMoney.com) – Only weeks after moving into their first home in 2006, Margarita Rios celebrated Christmas with her two daughters and their families. They finally had the room to do it right, with decorations outside the Valley Stream, N.Y., house and a nice tree surrounded by presents inside.

“It was very beautiful,” said Rios, who had saved for a decade to unite her children and grandchildren under one roof. “It was a dream come true.”

Christmas 2008, however, is shaping up to be a nightmare. No decorations. No tree.

No house.

In February, faced with an unexpected jump in her monthly mortgage bill, Rios stopped making payments and abandoned the home, shattering her life and scattering her family.

She and her new husband moved into a tiny rental apartment in Brooklyn and are trying to negotiate with the bank to sell the house without foreclosing. One daughter relocated to Queens, while the other is heading back to Mexico with her three children to escape New York’s high cost of living.

Rios is among the growing ranks of Americans trying to put their lives back together after losing their homes. About three million people were delinquent on their loans and one million homes were in foreclosure as of March 31, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

No one keeps track of what happens to people after they give up their homes, but their options generally are limited. Some move in with friends or family, while others end up living in their cars or in homeless shelters. Those with some means, like Rios, squeeze into rental apartments.

Rios knew when she bought the house she’d have to skimp to make the mortgage payments. But she felt it was worth it.

“It was a sacrifice but at least we’d have a home,” said Rios, who spoke through a translator and asked to be identified by her middle name. “Even though we were struggling, we were together and I was able to be with my grandkids.”

But counselors at the Nassau County Homeownership Center, to whom she turned for help in January, said they’ve seen cases like Rios’ too many times in recent years: New homeowners losing their houses after getting mortgages they didn’t understand and couldn’t afford.

“That type of loan should never have been made,” said Haydee Rosario, a homeownership counselor at the center.

$4,100 monthly mortgage

Rios’ housing saga began in 2006 when she approached a real estate agent to see whether she could qualify for a home. Since emigrating from Mexico in 1995 with her daughters, then ages 15 and 16, she had been renting apartments in Brooklyn and Queens. After working at her brother’s restaurant for a few years, she got a job at a Brooklyn factory making party goods, where she’s still employed.

Despite relatively meager earnings - she makes $25,000 a year at the factory - she managed to save $20,000 for a downpayment. Careful use of credit cards helped her establish a good credit history.

Ironically, it was this financial prudence that led to her downfall. Her nest egg and good credit score qualified her for an adjustable-rate loan that didn’t require documentation of her income.

Soon, Rios was the owner of a $489,000 four-bedroom home with a monthly mortgage payment of $4,100. She and one daughter split the two bedrooms upstairs, while her older daughter lived on the ground floor with her husband and two young children.

With her daughters each paying $1,500, she could cover the remaining $1,100. The real estate agent said she could refinance within two years and lower her payments.

Instead, the opposite happened. This past January, the monthly payments jumped to nearly $4,400, overwhelming the family. They were already struggling to make the payments and even a $300 increase was too much to bear.

She turned to the Homeownership Center, but the counselors couldn’t persuade the lender to modify the terms. Though it was difficult for her to accept, Rios decided to let the home go.

“We just couldn’t do it,” said Rios, who is in her 40s. “It was taking everything we had. It was just too much.”

Paying the price

With the center’s assistance, Rios is negotiating with her lender to do a short sale, in which she would sell the home and turn over the proceeds to the bank, which would then agree to forgive the remaining debt. But it might be tough to get the lender to go along since she now owes $503,000, including interest and late fees, and the home is only worth $372,800. If they can’t agree on terms or the home doesn’t sell, Rios faces being put into foreclosure.

The stress is taking its toll. She’s not sleeping, suffering from headaches and having trouble eating, noting that she’s already lost a dress size. She doesn’t know what she’ll do with all her belongings, most of which are still in the house, since they won’t fit in her studio. And she fears she’ll be arrested for being delinquent, even though the counselors have told her otherwise.

“Not being able to pay the debt is weighing on me,” she said. “And I lost all this money I worked so hard for.”

Most of all, however, she’s devastated at the scattering of her family. She’s concerned her older daughter’s children will not have as good a life in Mexico as they could have in the United States. And she doesn’t often see her younger daughter’s new baby because Rios has to work Saturdays and take care of household matters on Sundays. When they were all living together, having the grandchildren around made her forget about her problems, she said.

Still, despite all her troubles, Rios has not given up.

“I have to be strong to keep moving forward,” she said. “I have faith I’ll overcome and be in a better place in the future.”

Source — CNN

After Bungie bid adieu to Microsoft in the weeks following the release of its monstrous hit Halo 3, the developer was vocal in affirming that it has more than just more Halo in the cooker. However, confirmation that a new property from one of the most celebrated development houses in the industry is one thing, and exact details on what that game will entail is something entirely different.

While those details have yet to arrive, Bungie has now indicated that an unveil of its next project may be in the cards to kick off the E3 Media & Business Summit festivities next week. The Bungie podcast returned this week from an extended hiatus, and at the tail end of the broadcast, show host Brian Jarrard bantered with fellow emcee Luke Smith, teasing the impending, and unspecified, reveal.

Following Smith’s closing remarks in which he lamented the plight of the listener who was “wishing there was a new game announced,” Jarrard interrupted, saying, “Wasn’t there something going on on July 14, or something like that?” A coy Smith responded, “Uh, yeah, around then, there’s something,” to which Jarrard continued, “Somehow that’s sticking in my head for some reason, guess we’ll have to see.”

In November, Bungie studio manager Harold Ryan said that “We’re actively engaged with the senior staff here on a couple of new IPs right now, but the team that can generate cool Halo games is still running full-speed as well.” One of those products in the Halo universe is a new map for the franchise’s flagship installment. Made available free of charge this week, the Cold Storage map draws inspiration from the Chill Out battleground from Halo: Combat Evolved and presents an abandoned research facility.

Source — Gamespot